


The Waterbender

by silveradept



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender, The Little Mermaid (1989)
Genre: Ambassador Ariel, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, F/F, Insensitive Remarks, Merperson Ariel (Disney), Post-Canon, Sibling Banter, Waterbending & Waterbenders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-31
Updated: 2020-01-31
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:55:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22489795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silveradept/pseuds/silveradept
Summary: Katara is trying to get back to Republic City, and Ariel has brought her to Atlantica to enlist the aid of Queen Attina in finding the way home. And, possibly, a little bit of showing Katara off. If Ariel can convince Katara that she's interested.
Relationships: Ariel (Disney)/Katara (Avatar)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11
Collections: X-Ship - The Crossover Relationship Exchange 2019





	The Waterbender

**Author's Note:**

  * For [redlight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/redlight/gifts).



"Queen Attina, I present Katara of the Southern Water Tribe. She needs some help getting back to her friends at a place called Republic City," Ariel said, turning a graceful flip in the water before the woman seated on the throne. 

"That's the most formal I've ever heard you, Ambassador Ariel," Queen Attina said, clear amusement in her voice. "It must be gravely serious, indeed, for you to observe the protocols."

Ariel turned away so that Katara couldn't see her reaction, but it looked a little like she was blushing.

"Be welcome, Katara of the Southern Water Tribe. I, Attina of Atlantica, declare: as long as our hospitality is with you, you will find the water as easy to breathe as the air." The trident in Attina's hand glowed, and Katara felt a warmth on her neck.

"That should feel better," Attina said, floating off the throne. "It must have been quite a swim for you to get here from Ariel's castle."

Katara nodded. "In the Southern Water Tribe, swimming is often about staying alive by getting out of the water as quickly as possible."

"No doubt my sister had some helpful pointers, given all the time she's spent lusting after human legs," Attina said, giving Katara a wink. 

"Attina!" Ariel exclaimed.

Attina smiled at Katara before continuing. "It will take some time before anything useful comes back from our search for Republic City. In the meantime, you are welcome as our guest."

"Thank you, Queen Attina." Katara replied.

"If you are here for some time," Attina said, "I would very much like to see you demonstrate your magic for us." Attina inclined her head to Ariel. "Ariel, I'm glad to see you again. Try to visit more often, won't you?"

"I'll try," Ariel said. "Thank you for your help."

Attina swam off. Ariel waved to her as she left before turning to Katara. "You look nervous," she said, studying Katara. "Is everything fitting okay?"

Katara shook her head. "It fits fine." 

Ariel waited, sensing there was something else Katara wanted to say.

"Does anyone else wear clothes in Atlantica?" Katara finally said.

"Oh, that!" Ariel said, clear relief in her voice. "Yes, sometimes my sisters and I have to wear something for kingdom functions. You said you had a brother, right?" At Katara's nod, Ariel continued. "Sometimes we have to bring men down to Atlantica to negotiate more directly. You can imagine how difficult it is to get anything done when they're too busy looking at anything other than your treaty proposal."

"My brother lost a poetry battle trying to impress girls." Katara laughed at the memory. "Too focused on flexing his wit to count his syllables."

Ariel turned to Katara. "Poetry? I haven't had the opportunity to hear much poetry from anyone. Could you tell me a poem?"

Katara thought for a moment, then drew in a breath.

> Don't imitate me;  
>  it's as boring  
>  as the two halves of a melon.

"Sokka really liked this one, since he always felt he was the most unique out of all of us. Just about everyone else in our story can bend their element, but Sokka always tried to say he didn't need anything more than his boomerang."

"Where is he now?" Ariel said, startling Katara by how close she had drifted. Which in turn reminded Katara of where the tangent had started and had now gotten significantly closer. Katara tried not to rush turning her head so that she didn't have to look directly at Ariel.

"He's in Republic City," Katara said. "They all are. Aang, Sokka, Zuko, Toph. Suki might be there, too. I think you would like Toph. She's blind, she's short, and she swears more than any princess I've ever met."

"Why do you think that would appeal to me?" Ariel asked.

"You're both princesses that gave up basically everything you had to pursue the wider world outside, rather than accepting whatever role has been picked out for you by your father."

"And what," Ariel asked, floating down so that she could look Katara in the eyes, "makes you think I don't like those qualities in you more?" 

"Me?" Katara laughed.

" _You,_ " Ariel said with a surprising amount of force, "chieftain's daughter, who took a boat with her brother, released the Avatar, and then left with him so you could study magic, before saving the world. Unless you were exaggerating in those stories you told me."

"That's not…" Katara started before trailing off into silence.

"I wouldn't bother," a black-haired mermaid wearing the royal crest of Atlantica in her hair said as she approached.

"Ariel is the youngest of seven sisters," the blond mermaid also wearing the royal crest added. "She always got what she wanted through stubbornness, rather than diplomacy."

Katara looked confused. The other two mermaids, after a moment, widened their eyes on understanding, and then grinned.

"She hasn't told you!" the blonde-haired one said, mock-innocently. "Alana, what should we do?"

"Nothing, Andrina," Alana said, "If Ariel isn't ready to say anything, we won't make it better by pushing her into it. That's why she ran off and got legs in the first place."

Andrina dove and swam a circle around Katara before rejoining Alana. "Well, if I were going to chase a pair of legs, those are some very nice ones you have, Katara."

Ariel folded her arms over her chest and scowled.

"Lighten up, Ariel," Andrina said. "We're here to invite you to dinner with Attina and the rest of the family. It's been a while since you've been here that we want all the gossip."

"And by 'gossip', she means updates on all of our diplomatic ventures," Alana said without amusement. "Dinner should be ready in about an hour."

The two mermaids swam off. Ariel huffed, which might have blown her hair back some if she weren't surrounded by water, Katara realized.

"They still don't understand why I left," Ariel said quietly.

"Because there aren't that many things worse than being seen only as a future decoration for a man," Katara replied.

"Exactly!" Ariel said. "And you can imagine the caliber of merman that I was destined for, as the seventh daught—wait, you understand! Why haven't you said anything?"

"I told you already: you'd love Toph. It sounds like you two would get along great."

Ariel made a strangled, frustrated sound. "I don't want Toph. I want you, Katara!" she snapped, before covering her mouth in surprise.

"What?" Katara said, blinking in surprise, then crossing her arms defensively after realizing she had settled into her waterbending pose.

"You decided to leave, instead of accept your place," Ariel said, the words starting to tumble out, "You mastered all of your water magic because you wanted to, instead of accepting what was offered to you. And yes, okay, I admit it," Ariel added, throwing her hands up, "you've got really good legs, because they've traveled and lifted and fought and held you up through all of your adventures. Just like the rest of you."

"That's…not at all what I expected," Katara said, uncrossing her arms. "You actually mean that?"

"I'm the ambassador to the surface world because _I can't stand it here_ ," Ariel said. "All of my sisters think I'm a flighty girl obsessed with anything that walks, so none of them have any interest in coming up and seeing me or looking at the rest of the world. If I stay up there and they stay down here, then we can both pretend that each other doesn't exist except through correspondence."

"So why did you bring me down here?" Katara said. "You could have sent a letter asking for their help."

Ariel blushed fiercely. "Because I wanted to show you off," she said. "I thought that maybe if they met someone who had as much of a connection to the water as they did, they might start taking more of an interest in the rest of the world. And," Ariel hesitated, trying to tuck her hair behind her, "I thought they might listen to someone who was pretty."

Katara's face shuffled through several possible emotions before settling on a conspiratorial smirk. "So, what should we do, then, to make them believe that I'm the most beautiful sorcerer they've ever seen?" she said, bending the water around her. As she worked, Katara lifted herself off the sand and fashioned a tail and a modest top cover out of gently swirling water.

"How does this look, Ariel?" Katara asked. "Do I look like a water princess now?"

Ariel looked at Katara, completely tongue-tied at trying to describe how the lights of Atlantica made Katara's waterbending shimmer and glow, transforming her into a goddess.

"Beautiful," Ariel managed, floating closer before abruptly turning away. "Oh, Aphrodite, I'm _sunk_ ," she groaned, swimming away quickly.

"Wait, don't leave me alone," Katara said, propelling herself after Ariel with her bending. "Don't we still have dinner?" she shouted at the retreating Ariel.

"Dinner!" Ariel squeaked, swimming back toward the city equally as quickly as she was trying to flee it. Katara reversed her own bending-powered course as Ariel rocketed by.

"Are we going to talk about this?" Katara asked, pushing her velocity so that she could keep pace with Ariel's panicked swimming

Ariel stopped. Katara flailed to avoid overshooting her as she dispelled her bending completely.

"What was that?" Katara said as she treaded water at Ariel's eye level. 

"N-nothing," Ariel stammered.

"You sound like Sokka," Katara said, her lips twitching in amusement. "He could never hide his emotions when a pretty girl was involved."

Ariel tried to put on a serious face. Katara struggled to keep herself from laughing at the similarities.

"It's okay, you know," she said, leaning in to Ariel. "You can kiss m—mpph!"

Ariel kissed her for far longer than she had to make sure that Katara could breathe before seeking the audience with Attina. When they broke, Ariel turned her head away quickly.

"I thought you might be drowning," she said quickly. "Because you said it was okay for me to kiss you." 

"I can still breathe perfectly fine," Katara said, swimming over to Ariel. "I'm still okay with you kissing me."

They shared another kiss before a discreet cough announced the presence of a crab that had not been present before.

"Dinner," Ariel said. "They've sent Sebastian to take us there."

Katara shook her head at Ariel's subject change and re-conjured the mermaid of water she had created before Ariel took off swimming.

"While we're on the way, tell me how to fix this so all your sisters will be jealous of your catch," Katara said.

Ariel had a few pointers to give before dinner.


End file.
